Aspron
The aspron, from Latin asper, was a late Byzantine name for silver or silver-alloy coins. • Illustration — Aspron minted by Manuel I of Trebizond The Latin word asper originally meant "rough", but had gradually acquired the connotation of "fresh" or "freshly minted", i.e. not worn smooth by use, and, especially when referring to silver, "white", by the imperial period. It acquired a technical meaning in the 12th century, when the Byzantines began to refer to the billon trachy coin, which was issued in a blanched state, as an aspron. The same name was also sometimes applied to the contemporary electrum trachy as well.
Also recorded as Aspron trachy · asper · aspron
Aspron
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- silver coin
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The name re-appears in the 14th–15th centuries as a generic name for silver coinage, such as the Byzantine doukatopoulon or the Turkish akçe. The 15th century account books of the Venetian merchant-banker Giacomo Badoer lists several cities and governments that coined aspers, which included Trebizond, Caffa, Simisso (or Samsun), Tana, and Rhodes.
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Aspron, revision 1333658671 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Cecile Morrison, "Coin Usage and Exchange Rates in Badoer's Libro dei Conti", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 55 (2001), pp. 217-245
Bibliography printed in the source article · 1
- Grierson, Philip. Asper. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. 211. 1991. 978-0-19-504652-6.
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1- silver coinTerminology
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